Fiber optic transmission systems have become common in use into networking cabling systems, mainly as part of the backbone high data speed rate requirements. It is often recommended to install a minimum of 12 fiber optic cables per Telecommunications Room within a building, and a minimum of 24 fiber optic cables for installations between buildings in campus environments. Such fiber optic cables need to be terminated with connectors on panel (rack mounted or wall mounted) at each end of the cable.
One way to terminate a multi fiber optic cable is to fuse each fiber (12 to 24 fiber strands per cable) with pigtails, using fusion splicing equipment. Pigtails are factory terminated connectors on approximately 1-meter (3-feet) long fiber strand. Before performing the fusion, the cable needs to be unjacketed to expose a minimum of 60 cm (2 feet) of fiber strands. The purposed of exposing 60 cm to 1 m long fiber strand from the end of the cable is to facilitate the technician handling when performing the fusion splice, as well as accessing additional cable (slack) as needed for performing reworks and or connector or pigtail replacements.
Each of these fiber optic strands and pigtail strands is stripped, cleaned and cleaved before insertion into the fusion splicing equipment. Since the obtained splice is very fragile, a special heat shrink tube, the fiber splice protector, is placed in between the two fused fiber strands. The use of a fiber optic splice closure, as shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b, is to manage and protect the splice protectors as well as the exposed fiber strands (from the cable and pigtails) in a closed enclosure, that will generally be found in the fiber optic panel.
However, there is a need for an improved fiber optic cable extension sleeve.